Too Soon or Too Late

That night “we” were a nameless entity. Friends? Too simplistic for our complexities. Lovers? The connotation too tangled without tangled sheets. Abbreviated story: I already have a girlfriend; or rather until recently I had one. She is waiting alone in our apartment, for me; mind spinning wildly with imaginary scenarios of what we’re doing. The truth? We are watching TV innocently; she is chewing supermarket sushi, I too nervous to eat, keep thwacking her with her own pillows. I am a five-year-old boy, this is how I say: “I like you” “Do you like me?” “Check yes, please…this story I’m living hurts too much for me to finish it.” Saying, “Maybe you could resuscitate me…”

She turns knowing eyes my way, startling in their ability to pick me apart. “It’s time to go back…” She whispers, we both have finals in the morning; this is a moment of fantasy, it cannot last.

Idling her borrowed Honda outside my lit apartment we are motionless with what could be, but I’m too afraid of what already is to move forward. What is waiting for me behind these red brick walls? What is waiting for me in the weighted silence of this car? A smile that reaches her eyes…A kiss that comes too late? Another fist pressed lovingly against my throat?